I have approximately 600 friends on Facebook. I’m not bragging. I’m not even sure all of them actually qualify as “friends”, as many are just “followers” who sent me friend requests that I couldn’t ignore. I am certain that a few have “unfriended” me as a result of my political views, but for the most part, I remain friendly with those people, but in the old-fashioned sense of the word where actual face-to-face interaction is required.

You can never have too many friends. Friends encourage and support you. Friends defend you and make you feel appreciated. Friends correct and criticize you and make you a better person as a result.

We have family friends, neighborhood friends, friends from school and work and even friends of friends. But with all of the friends that I have accumulated in my lifetime, I have only one “best friend”. My best friend is Rick. No hesitation. No qualifier. If you hesitate when asked who your best friend is, you probably don’t have one and that’s OK. Having a best friend is not something that can be forced. A best friend just IS and not all of us are lucky enough to have one…YET!

I was lucky, although I may have questioned that when we first met. We were both 9 years old and he had recently moved from the other side of town and was forced to change schools. I knew him as the popular kid from West Park and I thought of myself as the popular kid from Hinkley Park, so it made perfect sense that we would become friends, but only after we fought. I lost, but as my bruises healed, I grew to realize that Rick had a lot more to offer a friendship than muscle.

We grew up in similar families and quickly became extended parts of those families. We played on the same teams and cheered each other’s accomplishments. We double dated and shared as many details as a gentleman would disclose. Like brothers, we were not always happy with each other, but we were free to argue about any subject without concern for what we said or how we said it. But mostly, we made each other laugh.

For most of the past 10 years, we weren’t together physically, as he made his home in Oklahoma. However, we spoke frequently, often to argue politics, arguments that took an unexpected hostile turn. Our relationship hit a temporary impasse with me choosing to say nothing if I had nothing nice to say. It drove Rick crazy.

My silence was broken by one email that consisted of three words: I have cancer. At first, I had thought this was a sick attempt of tricking me into reopening our lines of communication, but I responded simply, “I’m sorry to hear that.” Like true best friends, our political differences were quickly forgotten and all subsequent conversation and focus was effortlessly shifted to navigating this bump in the road of our lifelong journey.

Rick was given an 86 percent chance of full recovery when first diagnosed, a prognosis largely based on the assumption that his tumor was “typical”. It wasn’t. Seemingly overnight, that prognosis was changed to a six-month death sentence that took only weeks to serve. I was with him at the end, and until the end, he introduced me as his best friend.

Because our time was cut short, my initial intention was to warn all of you to make the most out of everyday as our time together is not guaranteed. However, when I look back at the life Rick and I shared, I realized that we couldn’t have done more than we did. We never forced anything, it just happened. We never needed much from each other, no expensive gifts or exotic trips. Just time together to share a beer and make our best friend laugh.

Sure, I miss him, but when I see his wife, kids, and seven siblings, he is here. When I have a certain inflection in my voice or make a certain move on the dance floor, he is here. When I tell a joke that we’ve told countless times before or recreate one of the many memories that included him, he is here. For when you have a best friend, they become a part of you. The memories that we were denied by cancer anger me from time to time, but the part of me that is classic Rick will live on and will always make me smile.